anding beside him.
The light from the living room shone on it and made it look sparkling
white. Then he drew Eleanore to him, threw his arms around her, and
kissed her on the mouth.

Merely a creature of man, only a woman, nothing but heart and breath,
all longing and forgetting, forgetting for just one moment, finding
herself for a moment, knowing her own self for a moment--she pressed
close up to him. But her hands were folded between her breast and his,
and thus separated their bodies.

Then she broke away from him, wrung her hands, looked up at him, pressed
close up to him again, wrung her hands again--it was all done in
absolute silence and with an almost terrible grace and loveliness.

Everything was now entirely different from what it had been, or what she
had formerly imagined it to be; there were depths to everything now. She
lost herself; she ceased to exist for a moment; darkness enveloped her
much-disciplined heart; she entered upon a second existence, an
existence that had no similarity with the first.

To this existence she was now bound; she had succumbed to it: the law of
nature had gone into effect. But the glass case had been shattered; it
was in pieces. She stood there unprotected, even exposed, so to speak,
to men, no longer immune to their glances, an accessible prey to their
touch.

She went into the kitchen, and heated the milk. Daniel returned to the
living room. His veins were burning, his heart was hammering. He had no
sense of appreciation of the time that had passed. When Eleanore came
into the room, he began to tremble.

She came up to him, and spoke to him in passionate sadness: "Have you
heard about Gertrude? Don't you know, really? She is with child--your
wife."

"I did not know it," whispered Daniel. "Did she tell you?"

"Yes, just now."

TRES FACIUNT COLLEGIUM

I

The habitues of the reserved table at the Crocodile were all reasonably
well informed of the events that had recently taken place in the homes
of Inspector Jordan and Jason Philip Schimmelweis. Details were
mentioned that would make it seem probable that the cracks in the walls
and the key-holes of both houses had been entertaining eavesdroppers.

Some refused to believe that Jason Philip had made restitution for the
money young Jordan had embezzled. For, said Degen, the baker,
Schimmelweis is a hard-fisted fellow, and whoever would try to get mo